PRISM Quartet to Release New Album, HERITAGE/REVOLUTION Volume 2

The omniverous all-sax ensemble PRISM Quartet unveils the second album in its massive Heritage/Evolution commissioning project: HERITAGE/EVOLUTION, Volume 2.

Out on Friday, August 13, it features world premiere recordings of three new works-all commissioned by the classical PRISM Quartet-composed and performed by three jazz heavyweights: Ravi Coltrane, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter.

PRISM co-founder Matthew Levy contributes his own piece as well, Forbidden Drive, in which Joe Lovano joins the Quartet (and which will come out as a single on July 16).

Heritage/Evolution, Volume 2 is the first release distributed by Symphonic for PRISM's label, XAS Records, and features liner notes written by famed host of WNYC's New Sounds, John Schaefer. Listen here.

The intrepid PRISM is on a constant search for new ways to celebrate the saxophone and explore new musical terrain. This recording is the culmination of six years of commissioning and live performance. It follows PRISM's critically-acclaimed 2015 album, Heritage/Evolution, Volume 1, which AllAboutJazz gave five stars and called "a phenomenal album filled with illusion, atmosphere and great music." That album featured compositions and performances by Steve Lehman, Dave Liebman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Greg Osby, Tim Ries, and Miguel Zenón.

With Heritage/Evolution, Volume 2, PRISM teams up with saxophonists Coltrane, Lovano, and Potter to explore their instrument's dual lineages in classical music and jazz. "But that's just a starting point," writes Schaefer in the album's liner notes. "As with PRISM's first volume in this series, the works presented here suggest a way forward that reconciles two apparently divergent traditions, from totally notated scores at one end to completely free improvisation at the other, and a dizzying array of possibilities in between."

Heritage/Evolution, Volume 2 will be followed by PRISM Quartet concerts on September 12-15, 2021 in Philadelphia and New York with Melissa Aldana, the 10th saxophonist/composer commissioned by PRISM for its Heritage/Evolution project. The concerts will also feature jazz trumpeter Terell Stafford. PRISM is commissioning a new work from Melissa for a forthcoming Heritage/Evolution, Volume 3 album that will also feature Miguel Zenón.

Pre-Order/Pre-Save Heritage/Evolution, Vol. 2.
Pre-Order/Pre-Save Forbidden Drive.